A lot of time and effort. I had to hit a type of rock bottom first. For me this was being rejected by the mental health crisis team, being chucked outside in the dead of winter, followed by being removed from the premises by security on the day that my homelife had reached peak abuse status and my school work was going down the toilet. I got a taxi home and realized that I was entirely alone in the world and there was nothing and no one that could save me. If I was to carry on, it was by myself.
Two events are linked to this one that resulted in my current self. In my teenage years, I was in a very similar situation as the above (which was my mid 20s). My escape was an internet community for WC3. When abuse hit peak and I was about to go insane, I talked with a friend of a friend that was a philosopher. They told me that I was entirely alone and that my fate was my own. At the time, I was reaching out to anyone to help me. I was screaming, crying, shouting, as if someone was going to save me. I knew the injustice of what was happening around me, but I was powerless to stop it and all I could do was complain. I was pissed at this guy for saying this to me in my darkest hour. Even today, I probably wouldn't talk to him. He was right though.
The other event that really solidified the path that I am now on was in my late 20s. I was in a disaster relationship in a squalid hole of a house in Belfast. Piles of rotten food on unwashed dishes, unhappy relationship, drinking problem, smoking problem and I grew my own weed for personal use. We didn't have money for heating and it was a bad winter. She fucked off back to her parents and left me with the cats for the whole of Christmas. My office was a box room with terrible windows that barely opened. I smoked my head off and eventually developed bronchitis. I couldn't breath. I would crawl to my desk every day and try to make money with my friend online while drinking my liver to death and smoking my lungs to oblivion. My friend and I would talk for long hours, normally until I fell asleep in my chair. Philosophy, politics, you name it. I realized one day that absolutely everything on this earth is entirely subject to debate. I refined this further to a realization that truth is entirely relative. You can justify anything. My opinion doesn't matter as much as yours doesn't, because at the end of the day we're going to believe whatever we want to believe. I cannot impact your will in any significant way. I refined this to a soundbite and even a mantra that I repeat to myself even to this day. It is, "everything is relative".
So I learned to love myself. I am handsome, extremely clever, entirely dysfunctional, an absolute waste of space and I will likely not contribute anything significant in my time. My fate is my own. My mind is my mind. I am entirely invincible and likely fractured beyond repair. If I die, it will be my will. If I live, it will be by my hand. No one helped me become who I am directly. I just learned how not to be a shitty person by proxy. I taught myself how to be a fair man. The only thing that was ever taught to me were strong morals, for which I am grateful. Everything else I taught myself. I have no brothers or sisters to guide me. My mother paid the bills and that was it. My grandparents lived their own lives.
I am self-made in absolute, regardless of the fact that what I made is a pile of shit. It's my pile of shit and I own it. It isn't really about loving yourself. It's about owning yourself. It's about being responsible for your development. I will tell you what the philosopher told me, which is that no one is going to save you. No one is going to help you. You are alone. Just you, on your world, in your universe. You have to survive, if you want to survive, and it has to be by your own hand. You will come to respect true strength and in turn come to respect yourself for growing out of the prison you've made for yourself. Good luck.
